10
A few days later
Ashleigh
“Hey, Sandra, I’m home,”I announced, as I opened the door, balancing two bags of groceries in my hands.
I could hear Daniel babbling and I figured Sandra must be reading to him. He loved to pretend he was saying all the words anytime he was being read to. Making my way toward the kitchen, I put down the groceries, then quickly sorted them away.
By the time I got back to the living room Sandra was pulling her stuff together to leave.
“Good day?” I asked.
“Interesting day,” she answered.
Daniel crawled over to me and basically climbed up my leg until he was standing. Then, raising his arms up, he signaled to me he wanted to be held. I hefted him up and realized I was never going to need to go to a gym for weightlifting, as he was his own workout. He’d gotten so big and solid, so fast.
Then again, Marc was no lightweight.
Shoot, I’d broken my don’t-think-about-Marc rule. Something that happened usually only every other hour. There’d been no word from him since Monday and it was absolutely maddening.
Did he want to know his son, or didn’t he?
Or had seeing the reality of a poopy diaper turned him off completely? If that was the case, then he didn’t deserve to have Daniel in his life.
“What was interesting?” I asked, focusing on what Sandra had said.
“We went for a stroll this morning and ran into your friend.”
“My friend?”
“You know, the handsome one who is also the baby’s father,” Sandra said, with a droll tone.
I quirked my lips. “You think you’re clever.”
“I know I’m clever,” she told me. “But this did not take cleverness. Daniel is a mini clone of him. Two and two add up to four very quickly. So, he was gone and now he is back?”
“It’s complicated,” I told her.
“You young people, it’s always complicated. You and he made a baby. Now, he comes around with wounded-wolf eyes looking at both of you like he just wants to be petted. To me, that’s not complicated.”
I ignored that, mostly because I didn’t know what wolf eyes were, and, instead, focused on what she’d said before. “What do you mean you ran into him?”
“Oh, you’ll see. Danny’s been a little fussy. You might consider taking him for a walk. And make sure you turn down Pear Street. Goodbye, little man,” she said, bending down to kiss his fat cheek, which made him giggle and wiggle in my arms.
She left, and I looked at Danny. “Did you see your daddy today?”
His response was to smack my cheek with his open palm.
“Baby, looks like we’re going for a walk.”
* * *
He was mowing the lawn. Shirt off, tucked into his back pocket, and mowing the lawn in front of a house on Pear Street. He stopped as soon as he spotted me, turning off the mower, then jogging down the driveway to greet us.
“Hey, good timing,” he said. Then he moved around the stroller and crouched in front of Danny. “Hey, big guy, you’re back.”
Then Marc, serious, grumpy, usually angry-at-something Marc, made this ridiculous face which sent Danny into peals of laughter.
